Luck Of The Wheels

SEVENTEEN

They put Goat on Dellin's mule. Even after the boy awoke he seemed dazed, and sat blinking stupidly as a half-wit at anything that was said to him. His eyes didn't open all the way. His mouth hung slightly ajar and he stared at Ki's moving lips when she spoke to him, asking him if he felt all right.

'I ... think so. I am not sure.'

Even his words came slowly. Ki turned to Dellin. 'Did I hurt him that badly?' she asked anxiously.

'No. What you see is not the result of what you did, but the result of what his parents did to him. He isn't accustomed to having to listen to words and sort out their meanings. He's grown up listening to feelings and responding to what people felt toward him rather than what they said. Now, he has to learn. And more than that, he has to learn to feel his own feelings about things, without leeching the feelings of those around him.' The mule clopped steadily along between them, with Goat making no response to Dellin'scomments about him. 'Blinding him would have been a gentler thing for me to do to him,' Dellin commented sourly.

Silence spun out between them as Ki tried to comprehend the emptiness that must surround Goat now. The boy was alone inside his skull for the first time in his life. She glanced up at him; his eyes were fixed on the far horizon, and they were as empty and placid as an infant's. She found herself going back in her mind, trying to remember not what she had said, but all that she had felt toward Goat in the time they had been together. She winced. And how had it been for him those days in the wagon when she had despised him and Vandien had wanted to kill him? The sudden shame she felt weighted her lungs.

'Useless to regret it,' Dellin observed. 'Better to forget it. I will never understand the penchant Humans have for dwelling on past unpleasantness, and letting it shape the course of their future lives.'

'Do you always listen in on what people are feeling?' Ki asked, trying to keep annoyance out of her voice. Not that it would keep him from knowing she felt it.

'Only on those I regard as my patients,' Dellin replied calmly.

'I don't regard myself as needing healing, of Jore or any other kind,' Ki observed, and this time she let her voice carry her irritation. 'The only thing I need from you is your help in finding Vandien.'

'You don't wish to resolve this mixture of feelings you have for him, before you rejoin him? Don't you think you should examine why you feel so much anger with someone you care about so deeply? And what about the self-anger and denial you are constantly dealing with? Why does it distress you so much that you depend upon him, and why do you constantly battle to conceal from him and yourself the depths of your feelings for him?'

'No.' Ki's voice was flat.

'No to what?' Dellin asked, and she was pleased to notice a note of surprise in his voice.

'No to all of it. I don't need to understand what I feel for him; I've lived with it for years, and it seems to work well for both of us. If it isn't broken, don't fix it, my father used to tell me. No, Dellin, the most I want from you is to know where he is, so I can catch up with him. And then I have to find my horses and wagon. And find a way to put my life back on a paying basis.'

'Do you realize how you hide from yourself behind these prosaic worries? Listen to how you say you must find him before he gets into trouble. Aren't you really feeling that you must find him before you get into trouble you can't face without him?'

The damn mule was too slow. At the rate they were moving, it would be nightfall before they even got to the outskirts of Tekum. Then, even if Dellin could take her straight to Vandien, there she'd be, in a hostile town full of Brurjans without even enough coins for a meal, let alone a room for the night. And how the hell was she ever going to track down her team and wagon? She turned to Dellin to ask him if he had any ideas, only to find he was already looking at her, his dark eyes full of pity.

'Sooner or later, you will have to deal with your feelings.'

'Then it will have to be later. Dellin, once we get into Tekum, is there any way you can trace my horses and ...' But he was already shaking his head before her sentence was half begun. 'I can't go into Tekum with you,' he said gently.

'Then how am I going to find ...'

'You'll find him. If you just trust yourself, you'll probably go straight to him. But in any case, I can't take Goat into Tekum. It's Festival there, and the streets are full of noise and emotion, too much for me to handle, let alone an inexperienced and sensitive child like Gotheris.'

'Then why are you bothering going this direction at all, if you aren't going to help me find him?' Ki demanded bitterly.

He shrugged. 'Duty, perhaps. I hate to see a person as confused as you are go floundering off into a dangerous place alone. Gratitude that you managed to bring Gotheris to me, even if you still owe us the rest of the trip. But most probably, curiosity. I would meet this Vandien, to whom you bond so tightly and who has left such a deep impression upon Gotheris. When we get to the outskirts of Tekum, I will find a safe place for us and let you go on alone.'

'Wonderful,' Ki said sourly. 'Thank you very much.'

'I don't understand,' Gotheris interrupted.

'You mean her words do not match her face?' Dellin suggested.

The boy nodded.

'Now you are beginning to learn,' Dellin said, and smiled at him. And the smile that Gotheris returned him was finally the boy's own.

Dusk was falling when they reached the outskirts of Tekum. The scattered farms were beginning to be smaller and closer to one another. Darkness was gathering around them, but in the town ahead yellow torches lit the streets and the dim sounds of merrymaking reached Ki's ears. Ki could make out the tree-lined streets that she and Vandien had passed down what seemed like ages ago. Their branches seemed to sparkle. She rubbed her eyes. Dellin stopped and the mule halted beside them. He peered about in the darkness, then pointed and spoke.

'There is a shed over there. The boy and I will spend the night there. It doesn't feel as if anyone is at home in the house. You will come back to meet us here, in the morning?'

Ki shrugged, feeling tired, frustrated and angry. 'I don't know. I suppose. Can't you give me any idea of where to look for Vandien?'

'I know no more than you know yourself, if you would only listen to yourself. He's here, somewhere. The link between you is not a thread that can be followed, but is more like the echo of your voice bouncing back to you. Go feeling for him; you'll find him.'

'I suppose so.' Ki tried to keep the scepticism out of her voice. She must be crazy to even believe this man at all. Maybe she was only going looking for Vandien because she so desperately wanted to believe he was alive. To keep the darkness at bay.

Dellin led the mule away, across the pasture. She listened to the animal's splayed hooves crunchingthrough the dry grasses until their silhouettes merged with the darkness. Then she moved on. The night seemed blacker now that she walked alone, but she found herself keeping to the side of the road and listening for other footsteps. Yet when she did encounter other folk, they paid little mind to her. She had reached the tree-lined street by then, and could make out the shards of glass and tiny bells that caught the yellow light of the torches and shimmered with it. The people who moved through the streets behaved as if it were full daylight, and a market day at that. A suppressed excitement seemed to shiver through the night air. Folk spoke to one another in rushed whispers, interspersed with much laughter. Ki wondered what the energy flowing through the night portended, then pushed the thought from her mind. As long as it kept other folk busy, it was all to her good. She moved like a ghost through the streets, untouched by the hilarity of Festival, keeping to the shadows, seeking only a man with dark hair and dark eyes and a narrow, crooked smile that kept her heart alive.

She passed cooking stalls, smelled the tantalizing odors of dough cooking in hot fat, of spiced meat and simmering gravy. Her stomach snapped at her throat angrily. Well, no help for it. She should have asked Dellin if he had any coins. She certainly didn't, not on her, and the wagon would certainly have been looted. She tried to worry about her destitute status, couldn't. Find the damn man first; after that, the other would fall into place. Or it wouldn't.

She found herself standing in the innyard of the Two Ducks. It was crowded tonight with wagons and carts. Riding animals, their bits slipped and grain spilled before them, were tethered at the rail. Light and noise came through the open door. It was as good a place as any to begin.

She slipped in the door, timing her entry to coincide with three men leaving, and sought the shadowed end of the room. The night was warm, but a fire still blazed on the hearth and meat was roasting over it. The room was chaotic. In one corner a handsome but mediocre harpist was playing for a rapt circle of mostly young girls. They did not seem to mind the shouted conversations that were being carried on behind them, or the sudden gusts of laughter or cursing that occasionally swept the room. Ki picked up a half-empty mug that someone had abandoned and leaned against the wall, trying to look as if she were paying attention to the harper while covertly eavesdropping on other conversations.

The harper couldn't sing very well, either. Ki listened in on a man telling the woman with him that she was going to have to tell Broderick she wouldn't see him anymore, and then to two farmers discussing whether the Windsingers would send rain right before haying time like they did last year. Three other men were hotly discussing the day's fencing contest, arguing about whether someone was justified in being as savage as he had been. A mixed group of young folk at the next table were playing a game that involved guessing whether the down sides of some tiles were red, black or blue. Just as Ki was going to abandon this tavern and try another, she heard a name she recognized.

'Kellich wouldn't have had to do it that way!' a man was saying. He was among the ones who had earlier been discussing the fencing. Ki edged closer, keeping her eyes on the warbling harper.

'Damn right about that!' agreed the short man in the group. 'Kellich was a damn fine swordsman. He'd have won clean, made it clear he was the best without having to cut anybody up. That bastard was no more than a butcher ... just a damn butcher. Blume isn't going to last the night. And he was just getting set to ask Aria to join with him.'

'No.' The man speaking now was more soft-spoken than the other two. He pushed brown hair back from his eyes. 'I'm no happier than you two are about Blume and Kurtis. And what he did to Darnell was a shameful thing to see. But he's a swordsman, through and through. He gave back to each what they offered him. Kurtis and Blume thought they'd have an easy time of it; they weren't even trying to look like they were fighting till he stung them. And Darnell, well, if there was another way to stop Darnell, I don'tknow what it is. But when he took on Farrick ... Moon's breath, but that was something to see. That was bladework, and I'd swear not even Kellich had that kind of grace in him.'

'Horsedung!' The short man looked angry that anyone would dare disagree with him. He spoke as if he were several mugs ahead of his companions. 'All that pausing and tapping blades and moving up and back ... looked more like a spring dance than two men with swords. If you ask me, he and Farrick know each other from somewhere, otherwise how could they have moved together like that, like some kind of jugglers or acrobats or ...'

'You damn dumb plow-pusher, that's Harperian fencing,' Brown-hair laughed. 'I saw it once before, when I travelled up north to the horse fair with my father. That's how it's done, though what I saw today made the horse-fair swordsmen look like sheepboys with sticks. It must be true what they say of Farrick, that his family had land and monies once and that he came south when ...'

'Farrick ain't no better than the rest of us, I don't care what kind of manners he puts on. And this damn Harperian fencing you keep talking about is more dancing fit for maids and boys than a way to treat a sword. And Kellich could have put him down as jerky before he could have gotten near him, if he'd tried those fancy dance steps when he fought him.'

'Kellich couldn't even have touched blades with him if they'd been fencing Harperian!'

'Damn you, Yency, you saying that outlander was better than our own Kellich?' The short man picked up his mug with no intention of drinking from it. The third man intervened hastily.

Settle down, settle down, no one's arguing with you, man. Yency was just saying he liked the man's style, that's all. And what's it to us, anyway? Tomorrow will tell.' The peacemaker's voice sank suddenly to a near whisper that Ki strained to hear. 'If the Duke's dead, we'll say the man was a good fencer. But in any case, the outlander will be dead. Got to admit, Yency, that when he fenced with Kellich, he fenced with death. Even if the poor bastard didn't know it. Buy us another round, Yency, and let's talk about something else.'

Ki drank from the mug before she realized it wasn't really hers, then set it down quickly. Her mind was struggling to piece together what she had heard. None of it made sense. She'd been expecting to find Vandien held hostage somewhere, probably badly injured, perhaps barely alive. But who else could those men have been talking about? Who else had fenced Kellich lately and beaten him? By the way they had been talking, it sounded as if Vandien had been competing in the fencing exhibition today. And winning, very bloodily. But he wouldn't do that! He wouldn't kill as part of a bout. And if he'd been capable of moving around, he'd have been looking for her, not fencing in some contest.

She found her way to the door, paused in the shadows outside. Harperian fencing. That's what he'd taught her. He'd told her it was an old style, perhaps the oldest known, and becoming rarer in the world. But it couldn't have been Vandien. It must have been some other outlander come into town for the festival. She'd look and listen elsewhere. Where? She thought of the inn across town, where they had stopped before, for no other reason than that they had been there together once. Follow her feelings, Dellin had told her. She tried to still the turmoil inside her, tried to 'feel' where Vandien might be in this frantic town. Nothing. Stupidity to even try. She thought briefly of going back inside the Two Ducks and trying to corner that Yency person and find out more about the fencing tournament today. But the Two Ducks seemed a bad place to call attention to herself; if they remembered Kellich's dying there, they'd remember the woman who'd been with his killer. She pushed herself away from the wall, started up the street. She moved through the shadowed areas of the street, avoiding the torches on their poles and the folk that clustered around them, laughing and talking and swatting at the swarming insects. Once more she heard the day's fencing mentioned, though never Vandien's name, only that 'The stranger and the Duke will make a fine pair of it, and who cares who comes out of it alive?' The folk gathered about the speaker generally laughed at that. She ventured a few steps closer, hoping to hear more, but was then distracted by a woman in a sere robe and hood hastening down the street. There was something naggingly familiar about her purposeful walk, and Ki trailed after her, scarcely daring to hope.

By the time she had passed three torch poles, Ki was sure of her. Keeping to the shadows, she increased her stride, her boots silent in the thick dust of the street. Then in the next stretch of darkness between torches, Ki was upon her, throwing a choking arm around her throat and dragging her struggling into the darkness between two buildings. The girl bit, sinking her teeth deeply, but the cloth of Ki's shirt was thick, and she surprised her captive by only forcing her forearm deeper into her mouth. Effectively gagged, she struggled, but her loose robe hampered her and Ki was very determined. At the end of the building there was a pile of straw, not very clean. Ki threw Willow to the ground atop it, and stood over her glaring.

'What ... what do you want of me?' Willow asked in a quavering voice.

'Vandien. Where is he?'

'Ki!'

The note of dismay in the girl's voice as she recognized her threw Ki off stride. But she masked it, demanding again, 'Where's Vandien, and my team and wagon? I know your damn rebellion took them, and I want them back. Or I go to the Duke and name names.'

'I don't know!'

Willow had answered too quickly and there was too much panic in her voice. Ki grabbed a handful of the robe over her chest, dragged her back up to her feet. Her anger had a focus now, and brought with it such strength that Ki knew she could kill this girl with her hands.

'I want them back,' she growled.

'Vintner!' Willow gasped out suddenly. 'Vintner took the wagon and team.'

'And Vandien?'

'I don't know! I swear I don't know, Ki! The others took him. It's how we are, no one person ever knows the whole plan. I swear, I haven't seen him!'

Ki shook her. 'But you can find out?'

'I ... maybe. I don't know, they won't want to tell me, but I'll try. I swear I'll try. Only you mustn't go to the Duke. It would ruin everything ... if the Duke found us out now, he'd kill Vandien as well. Please, Ki. Please.'

Ki believed her. There was no mistaking the genuine fear that filled her voice when she spoke of Ki going to the Duke. So, she had a handle on them where that was concerned. And what Willow said about no one person ever knowing the whole plan did fit in with what Goat had told her of the rebels. Kieased her grip on Willow's robe.

'This is what we're going to do,' Ki told her. 'First, we're going after my team and wagon. Then you're going to your friends, and you'll make them understand that I want Vandien turned loose, intact, just outside town, on the road going toward Villena. And that if he isn't, the Duke is going to know not only everything I know, but everything Goat knows about your rebellion. What do you want to bet that the Two Ducks would be a smoking ruin before nightfall?'

'Goat's ... alive, too?' Willow seemed suddenly baffled.

'Yes, Willow. He is. And Vandien had also better be alive, too. Or a lot of other people will be dead before tomorrow evening. Do you understand me?'

Willow's voice seemed steadier now. 'I'll take you to Vintner's farm now,' she said decisively. 'He and his sons are probably here in town still, at Festival. But that's just as well; I don't think he'd willingly part with that team.'

'Nor did I,' Ki reminded her acidly. She kept a grip on Willow's sleeve as they left the alley. Ki smiled and nodded to her as they walked, two women enjoying the evening together.

Vintner's farm turned out to be on the other side of Tekum, on a road rutted worse than any Ki had yet seen. His name had been his fortune once, but now they walked past vines that drooped brown and trailing from their frames. Scrubby grasses and thistles were dying between the vines and along the sides of the road. Even in the cool of the night, the place smelled dusty and dead. No lights showed in the windows of the house, and the lone watchdog came forth with its bony back arched and its moth-eaten tail tucked between its legs. Ki patted it absently.

'In back,' Willow whispered, as if the stillness of the place made talking sacrilegious.

She was right. The wagon was pulled up beside a shed that held wooden vats long bereft of fruit. Even in the darkness, a single glance inside was enough to tell Ki it had been plundered. She stepped back to the ground, rounded on Willow. 'Where are my things?' she demanded coldly.

Willow shrugged eloquently. 'Everywhere, by now. They were distributed to those in the most need.'

'And my need for them wasn't considered?' Ki asked acidly.

Willow shrugged again, and even in the darkness, her eyes were pale and without feeling. 'Soon-to-be-dead' folk needed nothing. Ki felt a sudden coldness up her back and in the base of her belly. 'What I'd really like to know,' she said conversationally, 'is how to tell the difference between the Brurjan road patrols and the rebel freedom fighters. They both seem to share a gift for despoiling travellers.'

Willow's eyes blazed suddenly. 'You can say such things, who have no idea of the deprivations we have suffered in recent years. When a blanket for your child's bed becomes a luxury, or a bit of meat to flavor the soup is a thing to look forward to, or your mule throwing a shoe is a family tragedy

'Those folk at Festival tonight didn't seem very deprived. Poor folk don't pack themselves into taverns and spend coins on holiday breads and skewers of meat.'

'Not usually. It isn't often like that. But it is tonight, because the rebellion has given them hope. Fortonight, they believe things may get better, and they remember how things were when the Duchess kept the Windsingers kind to us, and this valley was prosperous, when all of Loveran was a green place.'

Fervor filled her voice as she spoke. Pointless to argue, Ki decided. 'And my team?' she asked. She wondered if she could extract coin as well as Vandien with her threat of going to the Duke, but decided not to bring it up to Willow just yet.

'There's an old stable up the hill. He probably put them there.'

'Show me.'

Both horses whuffed a greeting to her. There was a scattering of dry grass in the manger they shared, a skimming of slimy water in a trough. Ki ran a hand over Sigurd's shoulder, felt dust spiked with sweat. She'd wager they hadn't been clean since they'd been taken from her. 'Vintner is so destitute, he could not even afford the time to groom them, I suppose.'

Willow didn't reply. Ki turned back to her in time to hear the heavy door of the stable thud into place. Her shoulder crashed into it a scant portion of a second after Willow wrestled the bar into place. The ancient boards gave with the impact of Ki's body but didn't yield.

'Damn it, Willow, let me out!'

There was no reply, but Ki could feel her on the other side of the door, listening silently.

'This place won't hold me for long. There's tools in here, and I'll be out of here by morning. And then the Duke's going to hear everything I know, Willow. Every damn thing!'

'He'll be dead by then,' Willow said calmly. She spoke in a conversational voice, as if she didn't really care if Ki could hear her or not. 'By morning the rebellion will have been served. Vandien will have killed the Duke. It has to be, Ki. Otherwise, Kellich's death is totally without meaning. I hope you can see that.'

'I'll see you in hell!' Ki roared, enraged beyond reason. But Willow was still talking, heedless of any noise Ki might make, and for the first time Ki noted the edge of madness in the girl's voice.

'... blade was poisoned. So he would die anyway, that would be inevitable. At least this way his death serves a purpose. Even Vandien came to see that. Death can have a meaning, if it is offered up in service to a higher cause. He killed two men today, cut another and mutilated a young woman, but they were not wasted. Those deaths were needed, to put him in position to kill the Duke for us.'

'I don't believe you!' Disgust filled Ki, and then a tickling fear that Willow might not be lying. 'Let me out of here!'

Willow's voice was soft. 'Vandien serves us now, filling Kellich's place. He came over readily enough, once he believed you were dead and accepted that he was dying. I think the knowledge of one's own death can bring out the higher nature in a man. Vandien will be remembered, Ki. Take comfort in that.'

Willow stopped talking, but Ki could think of nothing to say. She was babbling nonsense anyway. It was only when the silence had stretched thin to breaking that she asked of the darkness, 'Willow?' But there was no reply, not even the sound of breathing. She was gone.

Ki crouched down in the darkness and tried to think. But no matter how she put Willow's wordstogether, they made no sense. For whatever reason, the girl was lying. Vandien wouldn't kill in a tournament bout. And even if he had developed sudden fervor for this rebellion's cause, she couldn't see him in the role of assassin. None of it made sense. Willow had to be lying. The man she knew was incapable of such carnage. But the other men she had overheard in the tavern ... she suddenly felt quivery. It was true. Something inside her collapsed. She felt betrayed, not only by Vandien, but by herself. She'd loved a man, and never really known him at all. Anger warred with pain. She chose anger. She rose, and began to grope her way around the wall of the stable, searching for tools to pry the old boards loose.